The present invention relates generally to vehicles and more particularly to an improved trailer having a hinged bed with a rear portion that pivots between load/unload and transport positions, facilitating equipment loading and unloading.
Trailers have long been used for transporting various loads, including equipment such as garden tractors, riding lawnmowers, motorcycles and the like. One type of trailer includes a tongue at the front for coupling with a tow truck o or car and a hinged or removable rear portion that forms a ramp to be used during the loading and unloading of the trailer. An operator loading a trailer with a hinged or removable ramp may have to first place the trailer in a ramp-down loading position, load the trailer (e.g. by driving equipment onto it) and then manually move the trailer ramp to a horizontal or vertical transport position. This is a time consuming process and the trailer ramp may be heavy and/or of an awkward size and therefore difficult for an operator to remove or adjust. Ramps for larger vehicles or trailers due to their massiveness, which is sometimes required in order to safely meet structural requirements needed for handling heavier and larger loads, may be difficult to manually manipulate.
The problems of manual trailer ramp adjustment have been addressed by winch and cable devices and by hydraulic cylinder and piston devices that connect to both a trailer bed and a hinged loading ramp and are adapted for pivoting the ramp between load/unload and transport positions. The prior art includes trailers utilizing such devices for automatically pivoting their loading ramps to transport positions when equipment to be transported is driven onto the trailer beds.
Winch and cable or hydraulic cylinder and piston devices can adequately pivot hinged trailer ramps between load/unload and transport positions without undue physical exertion by operators. However, trailers equipped with such devices, and particularly devices that provide automatic ramp adjustment, are often complex in design, adding to the expense of initial trailer purchase and trailer maintenance.
What is needed is an improved hinged bed vehicle having linear motor means, such as a hydraulic cylinder-and-piston arrangement, which is simple to operate and which efficiently overcomes the ramp difficulties posed by large trailers and vehicles.